Setting Limits

Today I had some free time, so I was tidying in our bike/craft room. I started to sort through all my craft supplies and assorted accessories.

Hoo boy.

I think I've let good intentions and nebulous poorly-formed plans get the better of me. While I don't have tons of craft stuff, at least not embarrassingly so, I do have enough that I think I need to take a step back and reassess.

I have two (very) large rubbermaid bins full of yarn. Plus about 2/3 of a bin floating around the house in various bags, baskets, and project stages.

I have one (overflowing) large rubbermaid bin full of scrapbooking paper, trims, stickers and assorted geegaws.

I have a shelf full of thrifted fabric, a box of assorted ribbons, zippers and buttons, and an enormo-bag of polyfill.

I have a small rubbermaid tub full of beads and beading notions.

I have three small boxes (boot boxes from work, actually) full of crafting magazines - mostly beading and knitting.

I like to think of myself as the kind of person who doesn't define herself through acquisition, but I think I just made a big liar of myself.

I think that 2007 will be my year of de-stashing. Wendy at wendyknits (one of the first knitting blogs I ever read) has decided that this will be her year of "knit from your stash". I think she's onto something. 2007 will have to be my "craft from your enormous pile of stuff". I'm going to have to think about how I will do this - cold turkey just won't work. What if I'm trying to get through all the scrapbooking stuff and I run out of glue in May? What if I want to knit someone a gift and they request something for which I don't have the appropriate yarn? By Jan 1 2007 I will have some guidelines for myself, I will post them here, in public, and best of all, tell Richard about them so he can help me keep on track.

Maybe the money I save can be set aside in a "2008 craft supply blow-out" jar? Hehehehe.

And by the way, Richard comes home tonight. So excited!